


A Dream-like Stage

by Oregano_Cactus



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, I wrote this at 5am, M/M, banri: what if we kissed as part of our play...just kidding....unless?, director is a shithead as she should be, rest of autumn troupe is INCREDIBLY TANGENTIALLY THERE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22332271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oregano_Cactus/pseuds/Oregano_Cactus
Summary: "'Come with me, Itsuki. Leave all that you know behind, and gamble your last chance on me. I’ll pay you back for it, right?' Juza throws a lazy smirk his way, and Banri falters just like he’s supposed to.'...You’re a fool, Riku. And you still owe me.' It wasn’t scripted, but he steps just a little closer, sliding into Juza’s personal space as easy and sly as Itsuki would."Autumn Troupe is assigned to do a new play, and Banri unfortunately realizes a little more about himself and his relationship with Juza than he might have really wanted to. They may or may not kiss on-stage.
Relationships: Hyoudou Juuza/Settsu Banri
Comments: 42
Kudos: 309





	A Dream-like Stage

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy the fic!  
> I wrote this for a friend, because I really wanted to see some Banri/Juza involving them actually acting.  
> Please enjoy!

Banri recoils when he hears what Izumi wants Autumn to do next. “ _You want us to try what?”_

She stands, firm in her resolution, arms crossed. _“You heard me right. I think that we should branch out a bit more, shake it up so you guys aren’t so comfortable in your roles.”_

Jesus christ, he thinks. _“Isn’t confidence a good thing? You want us to be good on stage, don’t you?”_

_“Too much comfort equals stagnant, and that’s bo—ring, Banri!”_ Izumi sing-songs, with a shithead grin on her face. Goddammit. 

He crosses his arms, stuck. This was the problem with talking to people, they’d manipulate you in the worst moments and then you’d be stuck doing—doing some sort of fucking touchy-feely play that you didn’t even want to consider. _“Well, now that’s decided, Tsuzuru will be bringing the script to us! As soon as he…wakes up, I guess.”_ Their director claps her hands together, smiling just a touch too bright. 

— 

It’s the next day when Tsuzuru stumbles in, dark circles as deep as the night sky and an expression that suggests absolutely nothing behind those eyes. _“The script…It’s here…”_

Banri hisses through his teeth. _“Thanks again to our resident playwright for bringing the end of his life one year closer, jesus fuck.”_ Taichi, ever-helpful, rushes to assist (read: drag) Tsuzuru over to the couch. “ _So, let’s hear it.”_ The death bells are tolling in his ears already. 

He perks up a little at that, releasing a little of the death grip from the play in his hands. _“So, obviously, this is going to be more of an emotional and subtle play. A bit far from what you guys would normally handle, I think, but I suspect you’ll be able to pull it off.”_

A page turns. _“Our main lead is Itsuki, a wanderer of space. He’s cunning, cold, and lonely. He’s lived his entire life alone, repeating the same actions on the same planet for a while now because he can’t muster up the want to wander like he used to. Unafraid to do what he wants to get what he wants.”_ Interesting, Banri thought. So he was ambitious but lonely? 

“ _Next up is Riku, someone who seems like a carefree free spirit at first glance but actually has great responsibility on his shoulders. He’s an escaped prince from a distant planet, constantly on the run to evade the stuffy life chosen for him. His loyalty knows no bounds.”_ The foil was obvious here; Tsuzuru really knew his stuff. 

“ _We’ve got some supporting characters here, like a glass automaton named Haruto who doesn’t remember who he is anymore and can’t even recognize any emotions, he’s a bit of a unique experiment…”_ Tsuzuru’s voice disappears into his head as Banri runs through a bit of dialogue, trying to guess who might be who. He suspected that he might be cast as Riku; he knew he could pull off the princely air fairly well. Maybe Taichi for Itsuki…? 

Lost in thought, he barely noticed when Tsuzuru cleared his throat to begin assignments. _“First, Banri.”_ He startles at the pointing hand. _“You’re going to be Itsuki. I know it’s a bit off from what you usually play but you’re supposed to stretch your abilities here, right?”_ So he was lead again, hm? He wasn’t opposed to it by any means, just another opportunity to show off what he could learn. 

He was wondering who would be his partner when Tsuzuru pointed to Juza who had been fiddling around with a candy wrapper, saying, “ _And you’re Riku. Just like Banri, carefree attitudes aren’t really in your normal scope but the whole point is to do things you aren’t familiar with! Good luck.”_ Juza just sighs, then flips through the script again. Probably going to pore over the minute details again tonight, like the huge fucking nerd that he was, and then Banri wouldn’t be able to get any sleep through the muttering until he helped. God, being the leader was too much _work_. 

“ _Sakyo, you’ll be one of the pursuers, and Taichi, you’ll be…”_

Banri’s almost excited for rehearsal the next day, turning the fresh new concept in his mind over and over again. A lost prince, huh… 

— 

“ _What are you running from, hm?”_

_“That’s for me to know and for you to…not find out, whatever,”_ Juza awkwardly laughs, and Banri sighs. 

“ _Lighter. Brighten your laugh, shrug me off more, make it seem like I don’t really matter. You’re carefree,”_ he states, and Juza adjusts accordingly. 

— 

“ _Full runthrough, guys! Then you’re free. No stops, this is just a first time-run, and if you do well I’ll make special curry!”_ The director chants, and Banri shudders. 

“ _No curry, and it’s a deal.”_

— 

He flops down on his bed, exhausted. It’s surprisingly difficult to act for hours when you feel so far removed from the character, even though he knows he’ll get into his role better than anyone else soon enough. 

He’s about to pass out when he hears shuffling and feels an expectant silence hanging between the conjoined beds. God fucking damn it, he thinks, and says, “ _What the fuck do you want, Hyodo.”_

“ _...”_

“ _Spit it out.”_

“ _Your character. Itsuki’s not a sleaze, or corrupt. Play him differently.”_

Was he really trying to tell him what to do? Banri, enraged, sat up a little more. _“What the fuck do you mean, play him differently? That’s not even fucking helpful! If you want to tell me what to do—”_

Juza sighs, throwing a hand over his eyes. His silhouette’s outlined in the moonlight shining into the room, because somebody forgot to close the curtains again. _“Itsuki’s not supposed to be just an asshole, you know. He’s curious and lonely, and Riku’s supposed to save him from himself. The whole point of the journey is to help them discover each other, right? So make it seem like Itsuki wants to be saved. The space action is secondary, you have to make Itsuki seem like the lost person he is.”_

…Shit. He hated when Juza made good points. _“He’s still supposed to be dangerous and cold, isn’t he?”_

“ _Well, yeah, but he’s cold because he’s lonely. Make it so that it’s more obvious what Itsuki’s going for when he takes Riku in. He’s not after the money or whatever, he’s after friends.”_

“ _...Fine. I’ll change it tomorrow.”_

“ _Okay.”_

_“OKAY! God.”_

Juza just turns over at that, out again within minutes, and Banri thinks about Itsuki and his undying devotion to a man he doesn’t even know. 

— 

“ _...So, my prince, will you take me with you? Will you gamble it all away on this last trick, or will you leave your breath intertwined at the roses crossing our path?”_ Banri leans his body toward Juza’s, trying a little harder to show the longing contained in his lines. _“Tell me now, messiah. Save me from myself.”_

Juza frowns, a single misstep in the performance. “ _...”_

Instantly moving into a little bit more comfortable territory, Banri tsks. “ _What?”_

“ _That line, make it a little more striking. Drawl them, maybe?”_ Juza speaks slowly, eyes hyper focused. 

“ _Shit, yeah, gotcha.”_ He marks it down, and they move on to the next scene. 

— 

“ _Come with me, Itsuki. Leave all that you know behind, and gamble your last chance on me. I’ll pay you back for it, right?”_ Juza throws a lazy smirk his way, and Banri falters just like he’s supposed to. 

“ _...You’re a fool, Riku. And you still owe me.”_ It wasn’t scripted, but he steps just a little closer, sliding into Juza’s personal space as easy and sly as Itsuki would. 

“ _Well, you’ll have to catch me to make me pay for it, wouldn’t you?”_ Juza matches his improvisation, stepping with the stiff-legged stride befitting a prince, and then the director cuts in. 

“ _Good! I like that, whatever you two were doing. Autumn’s known for being physical, it’s a good idea to throw some of that into what you guys are doing this time.”_ They both step back, faces flushed, and conduct the rest of the rehearsal managing to completely ignore all else but the play. 

— 

It’s closing night at the Mankai Theater, and Autumn Troupe is making some last-minute preparations. Yuki’s a tiny pink blur backstage, pinning up costumes and doing hair and generally looking much too frazzled for someone who’s not even in high school yet. Banri fiddles with his headband again, trying one last time to adjust the loose silk pants he’s fitted in, before his hands are slapped away by Yuki. “ _You touch that and you’re dead, Neo-Yankee. They’re supposed to be fitted that way, and I’m not getting you a belt. Shut up and look pretty.”_

Juza looks equally uncomfortable, decked in a long coat with his prop sword and a hanging silver hair ornament. Their eyes briefly meet as they broadcast a call of _For the love of god please help me before Yuki actually murders me_ , then the 5-minute warning is given and they’re on stage. 

— 

Closing night’s always special, Banri thinks, and then he loses himself completely in the character. 

Itsuki’s lost, alone on a sandy planet that never changes, and he steals apples and threatens strangers with a glistening knife to try to make him feel something again. Banri spins in and out of the scene, a phantom in the dark lighting, letting himself pause for brief seconds as he sighs and looks out at the supposed setting sun. 

He stays, lonely, until the stage grows dark and a thunderous sound echoes from above and Juza essentially drops onto stage, hair ornament undone and clothing in disarray. Banri cries out right on cue, dragging Riku into the next scene. (The cursing as he picked up Juza was not scripted, but quiet enough to not matter. Goddammit, why did Juza have to actually have muscle mass.) 

They make their way through the next scenes with fair success, Banri laughing as he finishes up a particularly difficult sparring scene and Juza laughing in a perfectly Riku manner back. Sometimes he thinks what it would be like to have this camaraderie off stage too, where thoughts came easy and it seemed like every single action they made was in sync, but there was no time to worry about that when Itsuki and Riku were forced to rush across the stage as remnants of Riku’s past came to haunt them earlier than he meant it to. 

Juza grabs Banri’s hand, unscripted, as they stage-sprint to escape the guards, and Banri near-flinches in shock. 

Well, the show must go on, he thinks, and grasps firmly back. He firmly ignores the warmth emanating off of the single point of contact. 

— 

They hit the final scene, and Banri is near-giddy with excitement in a way he’d never admit to anyone off-stage. It’s going perfectly, everyone had been reacting perfectly, and as he spins his way around the lost prince, he thinks he’s bringing something to the character that works for him too. 

He dances and twirls around the axis of his rotation, Juza, and recites his lines with a drawling flair he’s never had before. He thinks he knows where it came from. “ _Hear me, Riku. Hear me well. You don’t know loneliness, you know?”_ He drops to a conspiratorial tone. “ _You don’t know it. You’ve been so surrounded all your life, you know who works for you and who’s around you, and you know exactly who’s after us right now.”_

Juza says nothing but a scripted flinch and a hand at his side, showing an injury sustained in the last skirmish against their pursuers that none but the audience can see. _“I’m so, so, heartbreakingly, achingly, lonely, you know that?”_ Itsuki bitterly laughs, stretching a hand out to the sky. _“You don’t know what you’re doing until you do it, you don’t know who you are until you see other people, you don’t know anything at all.”_

He stops moving then, a poisoned smile on his face. _“You don’t care either, I know. It doesn’t matter to me. You’re just seeking your thrill, aren’t you? Le petit prince, too far from home, just wants someone to toy with and drop when he’s had his fun.”_

Something possesses him that he doesn’t know, and Banri leans over delicately, unscripted, until he’s inches away from Juza’s face. _“Although I’m sure you’re used to that, hm? Tell me, prince, how many have you gone through like me? When do you plan to go back home?”_

Juza breaks script right along with him, matching him as he knew nobody but Juza could do. He reaches out and tilts Banri’s head down, forcing their eyes to meet. Banri processes the request in Juza’s eyes—he’s taken his hand off the injury, adjust the script accordingly—instantly, then processes the less pressing matter: Juza is currently far, far too close to him. _“That’s no home of mine, Itsuki.”_

He’s frozen, frozen in time as he feels Juza’s fingers on his face and the stage lights shine on him and suddenly he’s every bit the helpless fool Itsuki is. It’s only the slight twitch of Juza’s left hand that brings him back, and he remembers— “ _Riku,”_ he stammers, “noticing” the injury for the first time. _“Riku, what—what is that?”_

Juza smiles, and surprises Banri yet again. _“Nothing, Itsuki,”_ He chokes as he falls to the floor unscripted. _“Nothing at all.”_

“ _RIKU!”_ They’re both improvising on the fly, taking this scene as far as they can run with it, and as the dust floats in the air and the play feels alive with electricity they know stopping for them is, as always, a fate worse than death. 

Banri flutters his hands over Juza’s costume with practiced anxiousness, pressing his stupid headband (Yuki’d kill him later for this, but god if it wasn’t worth it to finally be rid of it) to attempt to stem the “bleeding”. “ _You idiot, you stupid stupid prince, why wouldn’t you TELL me, god—”_ He spills out, and re-orients himself in the plot to try to finish up while they get the 5-minute signal til the end of the play. 

Normally at this moment he’d have already finished dealing with the bleeding and they’d be perched on a rock talking, but their improvisation has thrown a bit of a wrench in the works. 

So, he does what he does best and goes with the flow. 

“ _Now what are you going to do, idiot?”_ Itsuki laugh-cries, and Banri cuts his eyes sideways to try to tell Juza what he’s going to do. 

Of course, Juza gets it. He always does. _“Well, I was thinking we could go somewhere that isn’t here. How does that sound?”_

Banri laughs, speaking around half-tears. _“I belong here, to the sand and the cold night. And you belong with your people, leading.”_

“ _Change the formula.”_ Juza’s eyes bore a hole into him. _“Isn’t that what you’re always saying? I don’t want this anymore, Itsuki.”_

_“...What do you mean?”_ It’s all new territory, he thinks. The words may be the same, but the context changes it so much that it may as well be new lines. _“I’m doomed here, same as you.”_

Juza props himself up, gasping with the exertion as he uses a branch to stand up straight. Banri remembers just in time to shout “ _Riku! You dumbass, stop it or you’ll hurt yourself again!”_ as he steps into Juza’s personal space similar to their rehearsal and he feels his face flush. 

“ _Come with me, Itsuki. Leave all that you know behind, and gamble your last chance on me. I’ll pay you back for it, right?”_ Juza holds his hand out, smiling. He’s softened the line, made it more familiar, and Banri matches his tone. 

“ _...You’re a fool, Riku. And you still owe me.”_ He’s closer to Juza than in the rehearsals. He’s too close. 

“ _Well, you’ll have to come with me to make me pay for it, wouldn’t you?”_ He’s too close, is the last thought he has before Juza takes one hand off the branch prop and grabs him around the waist to pull him close. 

Juza’s arm is wrapped around his waist, and his hand is resting directly on his hip, and now he’s beginning to understand why Yuki had been so insistent on his pants because he can feel every point of contact through the sheer cloth, and heat is radiating from their bodies with the same intensity as the stage lights shining down brightly, and his brain shuts off as he stutters, “ _I—_ ” 

_“We’ll make a new dream, together.”_ Juza’s still in character, somehow, and Banri nearly trips as he finally wrests control back and spins around to properly face him. 

The stage lights are much too bright on his face, and he can’t see the audience anymore. His focus is narrowed to a single person in front of him, and as he shakes with the pure euphoria of losing himself in the art, he is struck in an instant with the minute detail of the dust motes floating through the air. 

_“I’ll do it with you, my prince,”_ Banri stage-whispers, and then does the only thing he can think of to one-up Juza in that moment. 

The lights are shining down on him as he grabs Juza’s face, and he thinks he hears someone whistle as he twines his fingers in Juza’s hair and pulls him down for a kiss. 

Juza stiffens for a second before returning the kiss with equal fervor, half-smiling and determined to not lose even in this moment, and as the curtain falls and he hears the raucous cheering from the audience, Banri grins against their lips and smirks: 

_“Hey, Hyodo. I did it first.”_

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked the fic!  
> If you did, then please leave a comment--they really make my day and I love reading every single one of them, they're what keeps me writing!  
> Kudos are also equally appreciated ^w^  
> Some extra things:  
> There was originally a planned scene where Tsumugi helps coach them since these subtle dramatic plays are Winter's specialty, and then he is forced to view how embarrassingly gay these two are. I (sadly) had to cut this out because the sun had started rising at this point and I was like Oh My Fucking God I'm Going To Die.  
> The only thing going on in Juza's head this entire time is just a kinda constant screaming, he's just got a really good poker face.  
> Again, please leave a comment if you enjoyed!


End file.
